Our Micro Bakery
Priest River Porch Bakery
Sometimes people ask what a “micro bakery” is.
The short answer is that it’s a very small bakery run out of a home kitchen, baking in small batches for the local community. There’s no big production schedule, no giant mixers, and no delivery trucks. Just grain, flour, time, and a lot of hands-on work.
Priest River Porch Bakery started exactly that way.
Hi, I’m Sarah. Baking started as something I did for my family. Like a lot of people, I started experimenting with sourdough and trying to figure out how to make bread that tasted better and was healthier than what we could buy at the store.
At first, I was just baking for us. But I would see micro bakery stands from time to time and I love them. They are so cute and fun! I have a condition where I have to stop at every micro bakery/farm stand/porch bakery I come across…I just have to stop and see what creative things people are working on at home and sharing with their communities. I started to wonder if that was something I could do myself someday.
So we put out a small stand in our driveway. Just a cabinet we bought on the Facebook marketplace and renovated to give it some function and some flare.
It was simple — just a few loaves and baked goods set out for the neighborhood. People would stop by, grab something fresh, and head home. Bu it didn’t take long before that little stand became a regular part of our week.
Introducing 'the Crusty Wagon'
Over time the bakery grew a bit, and we decided to take the next step: a small horse trailer that we renovated into what we now call the Crusty Wagon.
It still keeps the same spirit of the original porch stand — small, local, and simple — just with a little more room for bread. Oh and we decided to keep the name “porch bakery”, even though it’s clearly no longer on our porch!
The biggest shift in the bakery happened when I discovered freshly milled flour. A friend recommended a podcast about milling grain at home. What I learned that day changed me forever and I knew I had to make the transition to only using freshly milled whole wheat flour.
At first it was nerve racking to make the shift. Would everything taste too different? Would I lose my customers? Do people even know or care what freshly milled flour is? These things kept my mind spinning.
But now that I had learned that commercially milled flour was void of health benefits and actually a major contributor to health issues, I vowed to make the change for my family, and I felt my customers deserved the same.
That’s really the heart of this micro bakery.
Fresh flour. Real ingredients. The way God intended.
Then Everything Changed Again
My husband and I spoke a while back about whether I would be interested in teaching classes. At the time, I wasn’t sure. Teaching a class felt like claiming to be an expert and was a bit outside my comfort zone. But that’s where we grow, right?
One day a customer reached out to me and asked me to teach a class to a group of local homesteading women. I agreed, and during that class is when something really clicked for me. Years ago I had the privilege of being a CrossFit coach and as soon as I started teaching this baking class, that same passion for coaching came rushing back in.
I LOVED teaching that class and once word got out that I was teaching fresh milled flour classes, the inquiries kept rolling in on when my next class would be. So, now I am teaching local classes for anyone interested in learning how to bake with freshly milled flour.
Milling your own grain sounds complicated at first, but it’s actually pretty simple once you see how it works! Getting started is the hardest part. If you’d like to learn, I hope you’ll come bake with me in one of my classes!
Stepping Outside Of My Comfort Zone
Priest River Porch Bakery is very much a family effort. My husband doesn’t bake, but he loves to help behind the scenes with the business, graphics, and marketing. Our kids are never far from the action either, but don’t worry, they aren’t helping with the baked good you get from the bakery. We’re not quite there yet!
Right now it’s a small bakery in the truest sense — built slowly, right here at home, one batch at a time.
It all started with a few loafs of bread, a repurposed hutch in the driveway, and conviction from the Lord.
Stay crusty,
Sarah